photographs

The funny thing about keeping photographs of moments of your past on your bedroom wall is how after a while, you sort of don't notice them anymore. It's quite ironic really, because the whole idea of having them there was to keep the memories alive as time passes by. However, because we're humans, we were sorta programmed to become less responsive or emotional about something after always being exposed to it.

From my own experience, having photographs capturing moments of pure joy and excitement on my wall gave me satisfaction only for a few months. After a while, i stopped feeling anything altogether when i happen to pass those printed images. At one point, i have even felt annoyed and irritated when i look at the photos, bothered by how the people in the photographs have changed altogether and how things aren't the same as they were before. I have even thought of ripping those pictures off my wall, wanting nothing more than to start over.

After more months of feeling numb at these mere decorations on my walls, one day i stopped and stared at the ones that caught my eyes. I looked at the smiles on the faces of the people in them. A lot of them were from posing at the camera, but behind the smiles i could see sincerity in their eyes.

I could see real happiness in mine.

It was like staring into a mirror showing me the me of the past, when i was younger, more naive, but happier. When i felt more loved. When i felt more excited for my future because if everything was so great at that time, how could things not get any better? How could i possibly lose the love of all these people around me, when in that moment we all felt infinite and oh so in control of our lives? The days when we're so sure we wouldn't let any of the people we love slip away because it felt like we would always be this close, this tight, this united, forever?

"We keep this love in a photograph. We made these memories for ourselves when our eyes are never closing, hearts are never broken, time's forever frozen still." - Photograph//Ed Sheeran.

Life happened. It hasn't even been that long, only what? Two, three years? It was even more depressing to realise that if people could change so much in just a matter of a few years, how much would we all have changed in a decade? In twenty years? Could we still remember what it felt like to be in each others' company back then, could we still appreciate the love and joy we had behind our eyes and our smiles and our laughter?

God, i hope so.

The thing is, i tend to forget that in between the captured moments of exuberance and euphoria, existed the moments in life that nobody would want to capture, that nobody would want to remember. I had forgotten that of course i hadn't pasted pictures of the moments i had cried, the moments when people had been disappointed with me, the moments of despair and depression and hardship and suffocation. There were no pictures on my walls to remind me that in between one happy photograph and the next, life had continued and i had had to go through many downs to have had the pleasure of capturing the brighter side of life on camera. I had forgotten the simple universal rule that life exists like a rollercoaster; it has its ups and downs.

And of course, unfortunately i always quickly conclude the worst and assume that it is other people who have changed, not me. Perhaps in another person's perspective, i would be one of the people in their photographs who they thought had changed too. Perhaps they saw the joy in my eyes and are disappointed at how i'm a very different person now compared to the one in the picture. And while we all blame everyone but ourselves for already moving on before we were ready to really say goodbye,the truth is we're the ones who are different. I was the one who gave up, who then one day missed what we all had and wonder how things had changed.

But in all honesty, it doesn't matter. It's okay if people have changed. Change is inevitable. We all have a life to live, and our own paths to lead. There were times when we walked it best with certain people, and there were times when we had to turn to a different direction and include new people along our journey while we leave behind the ones in our past, for them to turn to their own direction. Sometimes our paths would cross again, for some people it'll be right away, and for others it could take years.

But the thing is, all of these directions lead to one place. We're all hoping to reach that place in the end, we just had different roles to play that determined which direction we had to take to get there. So no matter if people were in our life for only a brief moment or two, we'll meet again. Those photographed moments? They matter. You? If you were or are a part of my life or someone else's life, you matter too.